1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to memory, and more specifically to memory employing a cross point array.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional nonvolatile memory requires three terminal MOSFET-based devices. The layout of such devices are not ideal, usually requiring feature sizes of 8 f2 for each memory cell, where f is the minimum feature size.
However, not all memory elements require three terminals. Certain complex metal oxides (CMOs), for example, can retain a resistive state after being exposed to an electronic pulse, which can be generated from two terminals. U.S. Pat. No. 6,204,139, issued Mar. 20, 2001 to Liu et al., incorporated herein by reference for all purposes, describes some perovskite materials that exhibit such characteristics. The perovskite materials are also described by the same researchers in “Electric-pulse-induced reversible resistance change effect in magnetoresistive films,” Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 76, No. 19, 8 May 2000, and “A New Concept for Non-Volatile Memory: The Electric-Pulse Induced Resistive Change Effect in Colossal Magnetoresistive Thin Films,” in materials for the 2001 Non-Volatile Memory Technology Symposium, all of which are hereby incorporated by reference for all purposes.
Similarly, the IBM Zurich Research Center has also published three technical papers that also discuss the use of metal oxide material for memory applications: “Reproducible switching effect in thin oxide films for memory applications,” Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 77, No. 1, 3 Jul. 2000, “Current-driven insulator-conductor transition and nonvolatile memory in chromium-doped SrTiO3 single crystals,” Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 78, No. 23, 4 Jun. 2001, and “Electric current distribution across a metal-insulator-metal structure during bistable switching,” Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 90, No. 6, 15 Sep. 2001, all of which are hereby incorporated by reference for all purposes.
Similarly, magnetic RAM (MRAM) requires only two terminals to deliver a magnetic field to the memory element. Other two terminal devices include Ovonic Unified Memory (OUM), which uses chalcogenic layers of material, and various types of ferroelectric memory. With only two terminals, it has been theorized that memory can be arranged in a cross point architecture.
However, mere recognition that a two terminal memory element is theoretically capable of being placed in a cross point array does not solve many of the non-trivial problems associated with actually creating such a device.
It is to be understood that, in the drawings, like reference numerals designate like structural elements. Also, it is understood that the depictions in the figures are not necessarily to scale.